EILAT!!!!

 OK, I’ve been a few wonderful places.  The Costa Rican rainforest, Mt. Katahdin, the Caribbean, Angkor Wat. But Eilat…or should I say the Red Sea...  The bar to impress me is set rather hi gh.  Enter Eilat.  We landed, grabbing our luggage as they evacuated the airport.  Why?  We do not know.  I decided that the waiting taxi meant get out of there so- we did!

This morning was dark and stormy.  E was disappointed thinking of having to be holed up in our room all day… alas !!the sun came out and all was well.  It was not hot, and was windy, so we spent the day at a great ocean center.

The Red Sea is amazing. Put the beauty of the Caribbean together with the awesomeness of the Grand Canyon and add a touch of exotic spice- Eilat. 

We are far from the town center- a little Miami-ish for me.

Going to post lots of pics, but one more thing.  Our room ( OK the budget room, over looks these structures that are triangular and just plain odd.  Was it a hostel?  Was it a camp?  I need to investigate this further, an hopefully will not break any rules... Pics below



 Here are those "structures"...

 This is on the hotel grounds.

 Cat on a boat, obviously!

 Feet in the Red Sea.

 This would be a camel.  They were outside of the ocean center.  One could pay for a ride :(

 Inside the ocean center.

 Mrs. Winslow was very impressed with the Red Sea.

 Mr. Bolduc got into a spot of trouble...

 As did Eizabeth...

 Sigh, and Andrew...

 And Paige and Amina... Supervising all of you was difficult!

 OK, now here's just a nice picture of the Red Sea with Jordan in the background.

 Oh no...

This one is entitled… people DO care.

OK, so it was with trepidation that I set off today.  My goal, an 11am meeting with Fourier Education.  They have the very cool probes that work with iPads,to use in science experiments.  The pedagogic manager of the company was nice enough to meet me in Tel Aviv last week, but today I went to HQ.  So google maps, we love google maps, but sometimes google maps do not love us!  My route was to take the bus to another bus to another bus.  I was not sure which direction to take the first bus? 

Remember the don’t talk to strangers thing?  Sarah always needs to talk to strangers here in Israel.  Unless they seem shady, anyhow… A lady waiting for the bus asked me about the bus, then asked where I am going? and said the train is better….just walk down the street a bit, take the 61 bus to the train station. 

I guess I am a muggle.  I did not even see a bus stop never mind bus 61!!  And all of this time I thought I was at least a half-blood!

So… worried that I was going to be late to this meeting ( although Israelis don’t seem to be often on time), I used my new app.  Gett taxi ( yes, I spelled it correctly.)  So I spent  a fortune and got there an hour early.  OK, time for tea?  So I went strolling down the street- in a high tech industrial park- and my taxi driver pulled over to ask if I was lost.  I explained I was early and Micha said traffic was too busy to drive back to TLV now, so let’s get a coffee.  OK then.

This town had a large population of Yemenites. So we stopped and he ordered a Yemenite snack.  I should have taken a picture Mrs. Pellerin, I’m sorry. It was a sliced hard-boiled egg,  two sauces in little bowls, and this rolled up pastry thing, like rolled up phyllo dough.  We also had a drink made of carrot and orange juices ( really good). So you dip the dough into the sauces.  Ok cool.  So I dipped and the cafe manager hollered something, and my taxi driver, now buddy Micha stopped me fro eating.  That red sauce is HOT.  I had generously dipped… oops scraped that off, and lived.

See People Care!

My meeting went well, then I had to go home.  I got a ride to the train station and asked the lady for a ticket to Tel Aviv.  16 shekels.  ok, got it.
How long does it take, I asked her.  She smiled gently and asked what station I was going to.  , ummm you know, Tel Aviv?  There are many stations she said.  oy!  I did my usual, well somewhere near central, ummm… so she said 25 minutes, central station. 

OK, this is getting long.  Finally, I got home- on a bus after the train, and nearly collapsed.  BUT we had to get to the local airport soon. Ya see, I’m getting really busy, and I want to be sure to do some touring before I have no time.  Last-minute deal to Eilat, on the RED SEA. 

So tired I couldn’t speak by this time… we got to Eilat, checked in, made the receptionist mad, made the waitress mad, then went to bed hungry.

But wait until you hear about breakfast…

OK, The dates were a little wrong- IMPORTANT MESSAGE AT THE END OF BLOG POST.

So...We went to Jerusalem on Sunday.  It took so long for those videos to load that it only got posted today- Tuesday.

Monday I had a meeting with my advisor.  The meeting was in the city of Ra'anana.  I had to take a bus!  So I did.  

Google Maps is an awesome app.  If you click on public transit ( assuming you are in a location where there IS public transit) it tells you what buses, trains etc to take, how long it will take, and when the next bus/train arrives.  So after an hour, there I was, at the Open University in Ra'anana.  After the meeting I figured, hey if the bus I took got me here, taking it the other direction should work, huh?  So I waited, and waited ...

(Ra'anana is an affluent suburb of TLV.  Here's a pic.  Lots of flowers)

 

I was so hungry I almost scaled a barbed wire fence to get an orange.  But I made a good choice !  That would have not have been respectful, responsible or safe! 

So the old adage, "Don't talk to strangers." Doesn't really work here in Israel, where networking is the name of the game.
Alternatively, it doesn't have to be an adage, it could just be Rick Springfield's song...

  Also waiting at the bus stop was Dov.  Dov was very interesting and helpful with my project.  He had completed his compulsory time in the IDF ( Israeli Defense Force)- military.  Finished his bachelor's degree.  Then got sidetracked from working on his Masters with a start-up company.
More on start-ups later.
Dov and his friends are working on an improvement to a satellite.  He and his friends are trying to decide whether or not to raise private funding, or try to sell the idea to a big company, like Boeing.  That is so cool!   

This whole idea of start-ups is what Israel is about.  Michelle, one of E's tutors, works for a start-up company that manages start-up companies.  
So let's see... what are some start-up companies that you know about?  How about FACEBOOK?
http://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/7-inspiring-stories-from-facebooks-early-days.html   

Yes folks.  This is why we...

MAKE THE MOST OF OUR EDUCATION AND  wait for it...

DO OUR WORK, YES THAT'S RIGHT YOU HEARD IT HERE! 

One can only eat just so much schwarma...

Today we went to Jerusalem.  Alert Mrs. Michaud!

So I'm just going to flood the page with pictures and as much as I can remember.  Tomorrow begins the work week.  
This is in old Jerusalem.  Heading towards Church of the Holy Sepulchre !

Old city Jerusalem with friends :)

 Ok the serious stuff.
The tomb of Jesus.

This heart was naturally in the stone 
just to the left of the entrance to the
tomb.  I thought that was pretty cool.
Magnified. 

 More in the church.

 Yad Vashem
http://www.yadvashem.org/
Holocaust memorial and study
center.  The children's 
memorial was beautiful.  I took
a video and will try to post it to
youtube.

                          The area around Jerusalem reminds me of California or northern Arizona.

In the old city.  The gold is the
Dome of the Rock that has been 
in the news so much lately.
http://www.domeoftherock.net/ 

 Honestly though, there was not a hint of the violence we see on the TV news.  Can you imagine if every violent crime that happens in
Baltimore or Miami was reported?  Things do
happen but it is not the usual way of life as they
lead us to believe on TV.





My little piece of paper
in the Western Wall!!

 

More views of the old city.  It is quite hilly there= great views. The Dead Sea was not far- so that lent a bit of water vapor to the air.

 This is part of the outer wall.
The old city is a walled city.
These are bullet holes- I believe 
from the war of 1967 he said.

 So many different groups of
people have been here over a looooong time. It is evident by the construction. Ya see, more
recent construction is usually on top of the old ( Just like the law of superposition in geology.)
Each group also had a unique style of construction.  In many places in Israel they are digging down, excavating to find the oldest buildings.  Do you think you live in an old house in Maine? Maybe 1850?  Imagine this area- thousands of years old.  The narrow streets are made of rock smoothed over the years by thousands of feet.

I have one more video to post.  It takes a long time to load but it shows the shops that line the narrow streets of the old city.